As we all know, heat pumps are more efficient when the flow temperature is low.
I’m running a large heat pump with over-sized radiators in a 200-year old house.
A common feature of modern heat pumps is weather compensation. Often this will be a “curve” which provides a high flow temperature when it’s cold outside and a lower flow temperature when it’s warmer outside. Some even have multiple points on the curve so it’s not linear!
My control algorithm uses a simple straight line at the moment.
However, I’ve also included a weather station so now I can work out the effective outside temperature rather than the measured temperature. That’s the temperature I use for my weather compensation.
I was motivated to do this when storm Ciara made the house a bit cooler that desired and I wanted the machines to sort it out.
Interestingly in the Danfoss video they refer to the windiness meaning you’d want to alter the curve but they had a human altering the curve instead of the machines.
I’m hoping to use Emoncms to provide a pluggable way to include the effective temperature in my algorithm.